The Autumn UKQSAR and Cheminformatics Society Meeting will be held at the AstraZeneca Discovery Centre, Cambridge on Thursday the 13th of November. The meeting is organised and hosted by AstraZeneca and the theme of this meeting is “Molecules in Motion”, including talks on physics-based modelling, AI-enhanced structure-prediction and more. Our agenda is shown below, but there is still plenty of opportunity to present a poster on your work. Please indicate this during registration. Registration closes on 26th October.
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Agenda
UKQSAR, Autumn Meeting, AstraZeneca, Cambridge, 13th November 2025 Program
| 09:00- 10:00 | Open registration, coffee/tea |
| 10:00 -10:10 | Welcome and opening remarks (Graeme Robb) |
| Session 1 | |
| 10:10-10:40 | Grand Canonical Simulations for In silico Prediction of Fragment Binding Sites, Modes, and Affinities Jon Essex – University of Southampton |
| 10:40-11:10 | Beyond Affinity: Leveraging MD Simulations to Compute Drug-Target Unbinding Kinetics Christina Athanasiu – AstraZeneca |
| 11:10-11:40 | Multiscale Simulations of DNA – How Atomistic MD Simulations Inform Systems Biology Models of Bacterial Gene Circuits and Their Regulation Sarah Harris – University of Sheffield |
| 11:40-12:10 | Computational Approaches for Targeted Protein Degradation in Cancer Drug Discovery Andrea Scarpino – ICR |
| 12:10-13:30 | Lunch and poster session |
| Session 2 (Chair: Silvia Bonomo) | |
| 13:30-14:00 | Federated Learning for Protein Co-Folding Models Using Open-Source AlphaFold3 Derivatives Benedict Irwin – Apheris |
| 14:00-14:30 | Open Science for Molecular Modelling with the Open Force Field Initiative Daniel Cole – University of Newcastle |
| 14:30-15:00 | Residence-time Scoring for High-Throughput Computer-Aided Drug Design Daniela Dolciami and Rob Ziolek – Kvantify |
| 15:00-15:30 | Coffee break and poster session |
| Session 3 (Chair: Ilenia Giangreco) | |
| 15:30-16:00 | Active Learning FEP for Prospective Use in Drug Design Jack Glancy – GSK |
| 16:00-16:30 | Modern Hit-Finding with Structure-Aware De Novo Design: Identification of Novel A2A Receptor Ligands Using Reinforcement Learning Pierre Matricon – Nxera Pharma |
| 16:30-16:40 | Concluding remarks, poster prize winner announcement and close (Nathan Brown) |
Posters
Please note that poster-boards are portrait-format. Each board is 880mm wide and 1770mm tall. This is large enough for a portrait A0 poster or a landscape A1 poster. To present a poster please state the title during the registration process.
Transport
For those planning their travel, we encourage the use of public transport and other green travel options. If arriving by train at Cambridge rail station, you have several options to reach The Discovery Centre:
- By bus: The Bus A busway from the station runs every 15 minutes and takes about 10 minutes to reach The Discovery Centre. Allow extra time during commuting hours.
- By bike: Cycling from the rail station to The Discovery Centre takes around 10 minutes. Visitor cycle racks are situated outside the building on Robinson Way.
- On foot: It takes approximately 40 minutes to walk from the rail station to The Discovery Centre via Hills Road.
If you plan to arrive by car, there are a few options to choose from.
- There is a multistorey carpark near The Discovery Centre. Please look for ‘Car Park 2’ on Robinson Way. This will cost £20-26 for all-day parking.
- The Trumpington Park and Ride is a free option. This is a 5 minute bus ride (every 10 minutes), 10 minute cycle or 30 minute walk from the venue.
- The Babraham Road Park and Ride is another free option. This is also a 10 minutes cycle or 30 minute walk to the venue. There is no direct bus connection.
Accommodation
There are a number of hotels situated close to the rail station and therefore a short walk from the Discovery Centre. The first three options below are larger hotels and likely to have room, but there are plenty of other options. The organising committee haven’t stayed at any of these hotels, so please don’t take this as a recommendation of quality.
- Clayton Hotel Cambridge [£££], 27-29 Station Road, Cambridge, CB1 2FB
- Ibis Cambridge Central Station [££], 2 Station Square, Cambridge, CB1 2GA
- Travelodge Cambridge Central [£], Clifton Way, Cambridge, CB1 7DY
- The Earl of Derby [£], 129 Hills Road Cambridge, CB2 1PG
- Sorrento Hotel [£], 196 Cherry Hinton Road, Cambridge, CB1 7AN
- Fairways Guest House [£], 143 Cherry Hinton Road, Cambridge, CB1 7BX
- Crystal Hotel [£], 167-169 Hills Road, Cambridge, CB2 8RJ
This is further from the station but still close to the venue. May be suitable if arriving by car.
- Lord Byron Inn [££], 22 Church Lane Trumpington, Cambridge, CB2 9LA
And finally, the University Rooms offer a different accommodation experience – some will be closer to the venue than others:
- University Rooms, [£-££], various locations